Aromaticity in Boron Clusters: Too Persistent to Give Up
The collaboration between Prof Poater, IQTC, Prof Francesc Teixidor, Prof. Clara Viñas, and Dr. Ines Bennour, ICMAB-CSIC, together with Sílvia Escayola and Prof. Miquel Solà from the UdG-IQCC have recently published a cover article on the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society
The work has analyzed the aromaticity of nido boranes and has proven the existence of a diatropic ring current in the plane at the middle of the nido-[C2B9H12]–. This observation is the first and unique data that proves experimentally the existence of diatropic currents, thence aromaticity, in nido clusters and is comparable to the existence of diatropic currents in planar aromatic compounds. Furthermore, the authors have experimentally and computationally proven that the higher thermodynamic stability of m-C2B10H12 vs. o-C2B10H12 isomersis not related to aromaticity differences but to the location of the carbon atoms in the carborane structure. More importantly, the aromaticity observed in closo carboranes is also present in their nido counterparts and thus aromaticity in boron clusters survives radical structural changes.
Reference Article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c02228